so on my 4th kit and have had pretty good results. in the primary right now is the dead ringer extract kit, which i was excited to try. i enjoy ipas and it got great reviews, and so on.
brewing day went well, 2.5 gal partial boil. fermenting in a swamp cooler in my basement for the past two weeks at ~64ish degrees. took a reading today and got 1.011.
sampling now and flavor seems appropriate but much more bitter than i would have expected and doesnt have much up front sweetness. feels a little out of balance.
not having brewed this style before im curious if this is typical for the style and the brew will balance out a bit as time goes or if a mistake may have been made.
will continue with secondary but interested if anyone has had similar response to this kit or thougths? full disclosure im big into hoppy beers…all types beers really…so im not shocked by the bitter so much as curious about the flavor trajectory while brewing ipas…
When I did D ringer extract mine finished at 1.014 and was a lot better after 4-6 weeks in the bottle. That beer seems to change rapidly (for the better) in terms of taste over a few weeks in the bottle.
In my experience, the bitterness will settle over time. I bet you’ll like it much more once it’s bottled/kegged up and ready to drink. Keep us updated either way!
I mashed mine a little lower than I planned. ended up at 1.008. but after a few weeks in the bottle, the hoppiness has mellowed a little. put about 3/4 of them in the fridge to help preserve that. gonna keep the rest in the basement to let mellow.
thanks for the feedback - its definitely a beginner question, but i was surprised by how forward the hops were…it is an ipa after all so what do i expect right?
the others ive done were just much more sweet up front with a long bitter finish (before bottling), i guess i expected a similar effect and then for it all to come together after conditioning.
will try to update the thread with results in a couple months!
I heard a saying when I first started brewing. “The best beer from your batch will always be the last one.” The same person also said that there is not a homebrewer in the world who has the patience to not try beers from their batch before they have completely aged.
